The draft Farm Bill in consideration in the House stands to exacerbate poverty, nutrition insecurity, and community collapse in the poorest areas of the country.

The quinquennial reapproval of the Farm Bill is back before Congress, only this time with a bit more drama than the past. The draft under consideration in the House will implement sweeping changes—including strengthened work requirements in the SNAP program—in nutrition program eligibility.

The defenses of the proposed changes and the attacks against them both center on a set of racialized urban stereotypes, with conservatives invoking the ghosts of “welfare queens,” and liberals charging the new rule will merely produce more hungry, deserving people. But few of those arguments consider the plight of the rural areas where the Farm Bill most dominates public life. Residents of those areas are already facing rising nutrition pressures. With new restrictions on SNAP, they could see true hunger return.

Many of the arguments in favor of work requirements in the Farm Bill currently cycling through Congress operate from the assumption that SNAP is too generous, and that food is generally accessible. “I think the principles of food stamps and continual dependency is one that’s worth fighting for,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in April, in a statement of support for the Farm Bill. In his framing, the matter of work requirements in SNAP is one of individual dependency and industriousness, and not one of survival.

That framework clearly fails, though, in America’s rural areas, which rely on SNAP more heavily than cities, and where poor adults and children can suffer deep food instability and jobs are ever harder to come by. A map from the Food Research & Action Center illustrates the places in America with the greatest SNAP participation rates. With few exceptions, the counties with the highest percentage of SNAP recipients are rural, with a third or more of all the families in the poorest rural counties receiving assistance. In all, rural households are about 25 percent more likely to receive SNAP benefits than urban households.

In at least four major ways, Republican lawmakers and leaders are currently working directly against the interests of the rural areas where President Donald Trump dominated the electoral map in 2016 and where races this November could prove decisive in control of Congress. ...

Another looming fight is centered in Congress, where the existing Farm Bill will start to run out of money in September. Although the bill rarely makes national headlines, it is closely tracked in agricultural areas and has broad effects throughout the country.

Beyond determining what goes into school lunches and providing for cheap corn at the market, the bill touches almost every meal in America. But the proposed replacement includes deep cuts to subsidies and that could mean troubles for family farmers, higher costs for parents and less cash being spent in rural towns.

The Congressional Budget Office put the cut at $1.5 billion over the next decade compared to the current law. And while Americans overwhelmingly tell pollsters they are against subsidies, some communities are quite reliant on them. For example, Nebraska’s sprawling Third Congressional District collected $11.9 billion in Agriculture Department subsidies between 1995 and 2016, according to one tally. The average farm household in the United States earns just shy of $118,000 a year — well above the $83,000 average American household. Direct payments to farmers or subsidized insurance play a part in that.

The Farm Bill also includes what most call food stamps, or financial help to feed 40 million poor Americans. Including this program in a Farm Bill is largely a way to secure votes from lawmakers from urban districts that don’t benefit directly from things like soybean subsidies. But the reality is that hunger is universal.

Trump is expected to veto farm bill unless it imposes tough work requirements

President Donald Trump is expected to tell lawmakers Wednesday that he intends to veto the farm bill unless it includes tighter work requirements for individuals receiving food stamps, two people familiar with the deliberations told the Wall Street Journal.

Work requirements for food stamps, known officially as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), are the most controversial portion of the farm bill, which provides funding for SNAP and must be re-authorized by the fall.

President Trump has embraced the arguments of his party, saying on the campaign trail, “The person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that’s working his and her ass off.”

Last October, Trump also claimed that “people are taking advantage of the system and other people aren’t receiving what they need to live.”

While it’s not yet known what kind of work requirements Trump will seek to impose, the ones suggested by the House are already exhaustive.

Well Donald Trump, what's a mother of 3 to do when she's already working 40 hours a week and earning the minimum wage? Is she supposed to kick her hours up to 60? I guess everyone can make $30,000 a year if they'd just buckle down and put their noses to the grindstone.

The legislation, a top priority for retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) because it contains elements of welfare reform, is scheduled to hit the floor this week.

But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said Republicans are shy of the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Still, the Texas Republican expressed confidence that he can flip enough members by working the phones over the weekend, clearing up any questions and concerns, and pointing out that some amendments will get a floor vote. ...

Conaway also met with President Trump at the White House on Thursday afternoon, following reports that he may veto the bill if it doesn’t include stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients.

But Conaway said no veto threat was discussed. In fact, he said, Trump was supportive of his effort — a sentiment that could go a long way with some of the conservatives who are still skeptical over certain components of the farm plan. ...

As a way to attract more support, Republican leaders are expected to allow a structured debate process that enables some germane amendments to receive a floor vote.

House conservatives tanked a GOP farm bill on Friday over an intraparty feud over immigration, delivering a stunning blow to Republican leaders as they try to find a path forward on immigration.

In a 198-213 vote, GOP conservatives essentially joined Democrats in rejecting the measure, which would have introduced tougher work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that were a priority for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

The whip count remained in question in the hours leading up to the dramatic vote, despite GOP leaders expressing confidence just minutes beforehand that they would have enough support to pass the bill.

Ryan and other GOP leaders frantically tried to flip members of the House Freedom Caucus from "no" to "yes" during the amendment vote series leading up to final passage.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate panel has approved a modest, bipartisan rewrite of federal farm and nutrition programs. That sidesteps a fight for now but sets up a clash with House Republicans intent on beefing up work requirements for food stamps.

The legislation, approved by a bipartisan 20-1 vote, would renew farm safety-net programs such as subsidies for crop insurance, farm credit, and land conservation. It also would extend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, widely known as food stamps, which helps feed more than 40 million people.

The panels approval comes as farm country is struggling with low prices and uncertainty in agricultural trade markets.

The legislation was drafted along traditionally bipartisan lines to ease its passage through the closely divided Senate, where Democrats have significant influence over most legislation.

The Senate passed legislation on Thursday that would legalize hemp as an agricultural commodity.

The bill, a key priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.), was included in a mammoth farm bill that cleared the Senate 86-11.

"I have heard from many Kentucky farmers who agree it’s time to remove the federal hurdles and give our state the opportunity to seize its full potential and once again become the national leader for hemp production. That is why I strongly advocated for this measure to be included in the Farm Bill," McConnell said in a statement after the farm bill passed the Senate.

He added that "for far too long, the federal government has prevented most farmers from growing hemp."

McConnell, as well as Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), introduced their hemp legislation as a stand-alone bill in April, before getting it included in the Senate's farm bill.

Arguably Kentucky already has the largest hemp crop--just not legally. The moonshiner switched to hemp was the story I was told when I lived in Ohio. All the "herb" was coming from there.
Hell, they would be poised to make some cash if marijuana was legalized and they could export it out of state. Lord knows they need a blessing.

President Trump on Thursday expressed support for House Republicans’ plan to tighten food-stamp work requirements, pressing Senate Republicans to adopt the provision even though it would probably doom a major bill’s chances of passing their chamber.

The House work requirement proposal, part of the 2018 farm bill, narrowly passed on strict party lines in June. But the Senate version of the farm bill made only technical tweaks to food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Negotiators from both chambers are slated to meet in September to try to reconcile differences between their bills, aiming to send identical measures back to their respective chambers for passage. Trump could then sign the bill into law.

Republicans say the work requirements provide a needed incentive for participants to move away from government assistance and into private employment, while Democrats and other critics say it could lead to as many as 1 million people going hungry.

About 2 Million Low-Income Americans Would Lose Benefits Under House Farm Bill, Study Says

Nearly two million low-income Americans, including 469,000 households with young children, would be stripped of benefits under the House version of the farm bill being considered this week by congressional negotiators, according to an analysis by a nonpartisan research firm.

The bill, a multiyear spending measure that narrowly passed the House in June, includes a proposal to reformulate income and expense criteria for the 42 million recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Under the bill, states could remove about 8 percent of those receiving aid from the rolls, according to the research firm, Mathematica, which used data from the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service.

About 34 percent of seniors in the program, or 677,000 households, would lose benefits under the proposal, according to the study. More than one in 10 people with a disability, another 214,000 households, would also lose eligibility.

Those estimates do not account for another proposal in the measure, which would impose strict new work requirements on beneficiaries. An additional 1.2 million people could be stripped of aid under that plan, according to a separate analysis released in May by the Congressional Budget Office, the study’s authors said.

They are either out of touch or don’t care. This summer, the House and Senate passed different versions of the 2018 farm bill. Neither address what’s happening here, in farm country and rural America.

All the talk around the farm bill is about the differences in proposals for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — a conversation we need to have. But, there is little talk about why so many families in rural America, including farm families, need food stamps in the first place.

We have a bona fide farm crisis on our hands. According to the USDA, farm income has dropped for a fifth straight year, often below costs, and will be the lowest in 12 years. The farmer’s share of the overall food dollar is the lowest since the statistic started 25 years ago.

Prices are low: Corn and beans are at $3.15 and $8.27 a bushel respectively, virtually the same price as 1974. In the southern Midwest, we have a serious drought, the amount of quality hay is at catastrophic levels and producers are talking about selling off livestock. Farmers aren’t being paid, while corporate agribusinesses report huge profits. This has a cascading effect on rural America: When family farmers thrive, rural economies thrive — when family farms struggle, rural communities do too.

President Trump’s trade fights are sending prices even lower. The USDA says it will give a one-time direct payment to producers that have lost export markets and buy millions of dollars’ worth of excess commodities to donate to feeding programs. But these actions won’t fix the bad policies that have created our depressed rural economies.

They are either out of touch or don’t care. This summer, the House and Senate passed different versions of the 2018 farm bill. Neither address what’s happening here, in farm country and rural America.

I'd say "both!"

Its a recurring theme around the world: ensuring that those who produce basic foods get a reasonable and reliable income and are not exploited by traders and processors. The US ought to be a mature enough country to find its solution, one that does not require farmers and farmworkers to rely on aid programs even in years of good production.

Congress quietly allowed the farm bill to expire over the weekend despite House Republicans’ hopes they would come to a consensus and pass a reauthorization ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline.

The expiration was blamed on discrepancies between the House and the Senate, as well as the parties over key provisions, including most prominently over a House provision to attach work requirements to the food stamp benefits in the current Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Democrats blasted the welfare reform language, arguing the Senate-passed version did not include the changes, while saying the requirements could be detrimental to the safety net relied upon by low-income earners — a criticism Republicans have rebuffed.

While there was talk of a short-term extension, a stop-gap measure ultimately was not brought to the floor before the lower chamber recessed ahead of the midterm elections.

A number of top negotiators — including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D- Mich.) and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) — have argued Congress’ real deadline isn’t until December as the majority of baseline programs remain funded until later this year.